Suicide: A Visual Study

Let's explore suicide rate of countries

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) provides a data repository which contains suicide rates (self-inflicted deaths per 100,000 people) for most countries between the years 1990 to 2016. In the following visualization, our goal is to explore the relationships between suicide rates and several factors:

  1. Per capita income in Dollars (extracted from world bank data
  2. Percentage enrolled in secondary education (extracted from world bank data); This metric is calculated by taking the ratio (expressed as a percentage) of total enrollments in secondary studies (regardless of age) of the age group that officially corresponds to the secondary level. In some instances, this value might exceed 100%
  3. Yearly average temperature (extracted from world bank data

Over the years most of the countries improved their GDP per capita. In general suicide rates across countries tend to decrease as GDP per capita increases. A good example of this is China. In 1990 China had a suicide rate of 21.9 and a GDP per capita of $317. In 2016, its suicide rate had decreased to 9.6 deaths per 100,000 people, while its GDP per capita improved to $8123. However, there are also cases like that of Japan. In 1990 Japan had a suicide rate of 20.0 and a GDP per capita of $25417. In 2016, despite an increase in GDP per capita ($38972) the suicide rate increased to 23.1. (Can money buy happiness? We'll leave that one to the experts.)

The above plot shows the evolution of suicide rates for specific countries. China, for example, has been able to reduce its suicide rate continuosly since 1990. Meanwhile, Japan has seen a slight decrease in its suicide rates since it hit a peak in the 2005-2007 period.

As we advance over the years we can see that the percentage of enrolled students in secondary education improves for most of the countries. China is a major success in this regard. As this took place, the country saw an important reduction in its suicide rates. It is also worthwhile to highlight how male to female suicide rate ratios change over time. As we can see, in 1990, only a handful of countries showed a ratio below 1 (which indicates a higher level of suicides amongst females). As we advance through the years we can see that male to female suicide ratios have grown above 1 even for these countries; generally sucides are more prevalent amongst males than females.

Throughout the years average yearly temperatures have seen some increase for most countries (possibly a sign of global warming). In general, we observe a negative correlation between temperature and suicide rates; colder temperatures are generally associated to higher suicide rates.

ForeverAlone visualization

The following visualization highlights user characteristics in the r/ForeverAlone subreddit (a forum in Reddit.com). In its thread for new visitors this forum is described as "(...) a place where people who have been alone most of their lives could come and talk about their issues".

In 2016 a survey was carried out in order to gather demographic information on the users in the forum. In total 469 people filled in the survey.

With this visualization we intend to serve a double purpose:

  1. Highlight how certain factors may have affected differently users who had attempted suicide and users who hadn’t.
  2. Present a general overview of the data.

Understanding the plot

Each dot represents an individual; red dots represent users who attempted suicide, while blue dots represent the remaining users.

Filters:

By navigating through the tabs one can apply filters to the data. The dots that satisfy the given filter will be colored with a higher intensity. For each tab, the two horizontal bars at the bottom will show the percentages of users that satisfy the filter; the red bar referring to users who attempted suicide and the blue bar representing the remaining users.

By hovering over the dots one can get detailed information on each user.

Attempted suicide
Did not attempt suicide
Satisfies filter (Attempted suicide)
Satisfies filter (Did not attempt suicide)